


Letters from Nowhere

by 55anon (Anon)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Epistolary, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-30
Updated: 2011-03-29
Packaged: 2017-10-21 04:11:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 29
Words: 13,640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/220757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anon/pseuds/55anon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>These, being letters desperate, lost, unwritten; published without knowledge or consent of the corresponding parties.  Judge as you are wont.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Lupin:

I long for touch.

I want to taste.

I wish to leave the cloying environs of the dungeons, to escape from this enchanted fortress. Every castle is a fortress, a place into which the people withdraw when the enemy comes to besiege. I feel I have been at siege for these twenty years and I long to breathe the free air, no matter the cost. I long to die, I long to be free, I long to die free.

I write these words to you because you know. The unquenchable thirst. The curse of Tantalus. I have often wondered how you could remain so very human-- I imagine you tell yourself "all but the moon." All but the Mark. All but our pasts.

What makes a human being, Lupin? What defines us, if not our experiences? You and I, we are Dark and cursed. We have masters to serve, we are tools to be used, and according to the established order we are not to complain, to bemoan our places and ask for something better. In truth, I want something better. I want to leave these wretched halls and walk unnoticed.

You are singularly able to make yourself disappear. You are practiced. You are free to go where you please, so long as you mind your mistress. So long as. All but. Tell me, how does it taste to have all but freedom? All but a choice.

Does it matter, what I write and what I desire? Everything ends, dissolves. So shall I, when this is over.

I have many regrets, Remus. I suspect you do as well.

I regret I have not touched you.

I regret I have not tasted you.

 

SS


	2. Chapter 2

Severus,

In dreams, I am a wolf. In dreams, I live with a pack-- Siberia, Canada-- as you say, does it matter? Freedom is freedom to a wolf, the smell is distinctive. I run for miles and remember evergreens. There are days when I long for that life, there are mornings when I wake, drenched in sweat, terrified. Men have made a monster of me, Severus, and the only thing my wolf desires is freedom, as any animal does. That is what I think some days. What I fear most, what I desire most, is that one day I will wake and I will wonder why I have a human face, a human body, when I am a wolf. My nature is divorced against me. The tearing of a werewolf is not simply from violence, anger, bloodlust. If I do not turn feral before the war ends, I will count it a miracle.

Wolfsbane, Severus, does not allow me to stay sane. I do not keep a human mind-- that is what Damocles liked to say. How can he know. Wolfsbane does not give me humanity, it is not a gift. It is unnatural and I fight each time, every moon, because it goes against everything. Wolfsbane domesticates. It turns me into nothing better than a dog, whining and waiting for a human master. It is liquid Imperius. With Dark potions come Dark deeds, for Dark creatures are Dark remedies.

Yes, I dream of freedom. Each passing moon I long, my skin itches under the cloth. With this comes a carnal desire. You regret you have not touched and tasted me. I regret that you never claimed me as your own. I would have given everything to you. But not only for pleasure-- pleasure can be got anywhere. I want you for the experiences you so despise. I want you as only Darkness can want: devouring, all-consuming, addictive. If you had taken me I would not have denied you, though I would not have stopped dreaming. There is a part-- I suspect you have it too-- untouched and untouchable by any other. She holds it, as you say. And she does not. My moon induced madness has been with me so long, I do not think of it as an infection. It is nestled deep in my body and will kill me someday, like a worm gutting my insides.

They are few, but there dreams, rare and never lasting, of a life with you without our Darkness of markings and past between us. Would you and I be the same? Could we stand each other? What, as you say, defines a human?

I am not human, Severus. Do not stir dreams long dead, do not fight what is inevitable. It has been a very long time since the wolf dreamed of being human.

 

Yours,

RJ Lupin


	3. Chapter 3

Lupin:

Having. I do not want to have you. I do not want mastery, I do not want claims or any other means by which to mark a person as belonging. Let not oaths be exchanged, nor promises between us-- I am too jealous of those free that I will not conscript it into the hands of another before I have seen its seal. Let there be nothing between us. The past weighs enough as it stands.

I cannot, I never could, speak freely what I might write. And writing for a spy is a foolish endeavor. Nor do I seek to preserve memories, rather I seek to obliterate them. Burn these letters, Lupin. Let nothing remain between us. There can be no record, no hint of association. My life has always belonged to others but this will be mine, and no one else's. Let time forget us, let history wash away and let my name stand as the mark of a traitor, a hero, whatever they wish to make of me. But you-- with you, there is no making. There are no wishes. The simplest and greatest gift we might give each other is nothingness. I have too many ties that bind, oaths sworn for the sake of the greater.

Remus, it is a cliche that seeing my death and tasting you, I become greedy again. I despair that I was not born another man. I desired, when I was young, to be indispensable. To be the man upon which everything depended. I find myself in this position now and my life threads like spider's silk, stretched and steel and fragile. The fortress is my prison, the sound of your voice offers hope unwanted. I will never say this.

Why did we begin, Lupin? Why try to steal moments of our own making when everything is written so clearly on the wall? Why bring ourselves to this point with the terrible understanding, the honesty burning in your gold eyes, that in another time, if another place, on another world. I have had a lifetime to think on regrets, as have you. Are we such gluttons for pain that we find new ways to torture ourselves?

I hate you for wanting to be taken. I hate you for offering what I can never give. I hate the skin of your back, the muscles of your calves, I hate your hands. When we have sex I burn with everything I have lost. When we make love, I bite you because you and I, we have no business making love. We are blasted and fools, Lupin. Why do you insist on taking more?

I should have known you to be a thief. No werewolf survives without stealing from the henhouse. I should have seen your sleight of hand, the same beguiling face and smile that seduced three boys into an unshakeable bond of loyalty to you. The Dark Lord is a chameleon, presenting a convenient skin toward any whom he wants. You are no better. He offers the promise of power. You offer the promise of abandon, wildness, rawness. The Dark Lord brings his followers with the mystique of darkness and you-- moonlight. There is fever in your step, there is terror in your very breath.

A thief. You never were a beggar.

I am not a thief, Remus. Spies hoard memories, information. Connections, advantages. I have always been a spy, Lupin, even as a child. The role came to me naturally just as, I suspect, thieving comes to you.

Let me stay distant. Let us forget. Let us burn letters and memories. When we die, there will be no record of us. For me, that is record enough.

Let me go. I want you. You offer yourself. Do you understand that bound thus, we will never be free?

 

SS


	4. Chapter 4

Severus,

What do you know of freedom. Don't speak of it.

I am free to die and none would take notice. I am free to go and none would stop me. I am free to eat from the forest, I am free the roam the city, I am free to scratch an existence on the moors. This is not self pity. This is my freedom. I am free of all possessions, I am free of friends, but I am never free of myself, to be myself, to breathe and know that it is Remus Lupin residing in these bones. Freedom is alienation unto oneself. Don't speak of it. A thief's freedom is something stolen, like everything else.

If I love you, it is because I am selfish and don't care what you want. My love has never been generous and free, my manners have never been sincere. If I love you, it is because I want to keep you forever, while you would melt away. It is because I want to tell the world that I have something worth keeping.

Severus, don't speak of the future. Don't think on it. Pretend that we will last forever, pretend that we are immortal and we will outlast even the coils of time. Pretend with me, that we do not face mortality at every moonrise, every summons. Do no long for rest but resolve. Do not leave me. Because a thief, I have never asked for what I might desire and I will listen to your footsteps and watch the line of your shoulders as you walk away.

If I love you, it's because I am selfish and do not want to die. The knowledge that you are a prisoner in the fortress, the memory of your presence presses into me and keeps me bound. The scent of your sweat and the arch of your nose are enough to tie me. You whisper, your tongue and the slickness of your hair, you hands spreading my legs make me still. I stare, my breathing is even.

Keep me. It is a terrible thing to ask for, but I am asking.

For I, being poor, have only my dreams, and have spread my dreams at your feet.

 

Yours,

RJ Lupin


	5. Chapter 5

Lupin:

My body aches, and not with longing.

Between my shoulder blades are cavities, empty and filled with tar. Under my ribcage there is a broken switch. My neck seems to stretch like a giraffe reaching for the tops of trees, and my spine bends like copper. Someday my knuckles with become inflamed with arthritis and my fingertips raw with the skin peeled away. My wrists will swell, the pale and slenderness of youth has already faded, and I can see my skin begin to yellow like jaundice.

I wish.

I want.

I cannot believe.

There was a time I had faith, but I cannot remember the feeling of it now.

To see you. Solid, before me. Naked, in the moonlight. Eroticism, intimacy. What do bones of rotting marrow know? Bodies are foreign, we are not ourselves when we touch skin to skin. My fingers, the palms of my hands have never touched anything before they you. Memory does not exist. Your knuckles and you knees, the arches of your feet and the bend of your waist. It is like asking a paradox. Your sternum, the dimples of your back. I could stare without taste and light myself on fire.

Why are you all sinew and scar? Why are you written in blood and silver when you writhe under my hands? Who are you, when you open your mouth and lick your lips? You seem to be made of the pearls of memories, the sound of your voice rips the moving tapestry. My love, my death, how can I keep you when the pins and nails of men and wives would stake you the wall until iridescent scales fell from your eyes and turned to ash?

If I could, I would take your body and spread it on my bed. I would press kisses into the underside of your existence, I would anoint you and pray until the oceans shook with envy. Then I would desecrate you, I would blaspheme against you and sin so sweetly, I would rebel and destroy your faith. Our bodies would tremble with the wrath of our love, and scars and sinew would be insufficient to contain us. Sex is not religious. Purged, annihilated, terrible, I would curse our bed and leave it to remind us of our deficiencies.

You know I do not do things by halves. I serve two masters, not one. I loved a girl and it drove her into the arms of my enemies. If you can survive two wars, I will eat you alive in a third.

That is my nature. Do not mistake me for something else.

 

SS


	6. Chapter 6

Severus,

When I am with you. When I am with you. When I am with you, I am tired. Every breath is heavy. Every sound echoes. I have not loved anyone so deeply that my well runs dry. When I leave you, the world is brighter and the light is harsh. Sounds do not push my liver. My chest is not constricted with the weight of your gaze and the silence that sleeps between us.

I love you, and it is a love born of desperation. Desperate because I see only now how the threads knit together like my bones, and I see the moon ominous before my world turns. I have been a fool, and shortsighted. I have been too cautious, I have been too bold. I feel as though anything we could have done would never lead to a perfect alignment and our story will always be an eternal dance of drawing close, pulling away, drawing close, pulling away. I wish you could kill me.

When I read stories of star-crossed lovers, my heart aches and I put my hand to it to soothe. The day I lost everything in the world, my heart stopped beating and I spoke to it, I told my heart that I understood-- a lie. I told my heart to sleep, to beat, to sleep perchance to free. I hold you close, I hold blankets close and pretend it's you beside me and I say, I murmur, nothing of consequence. It does not do to cling as if it's the last day of our life. I hold you close and feel your warmth and wonder what it's like, sleeping, beating. I wonder where you are.

Our intimacy comes from sex and I wonder what we would be like without the stink of semen. Could I read with you? Could I hear you speak? Could we live as men and neighbors, with good sturdy fences and a bottle of whiskey? Would you still wear black, and I would I remain forever brown? If we had no bodies between us, would we wear glasses and work with our hands?

Could I cradle your body to mine and kiss it in the dark? Could I put my mouth to you, could I taste darjeeling and bemoan the tepid water running in the bath? Would the neighbors admire your white roses? If we were in the city, could we go for football games and pints? I am fused to you by sheer pressure, pressure generating heat. I am afraid that if the pressure was ever removed, we would emerge disfigured, blaming each other. I will invent a spell. It will kill me the moment you pass over.

Two men, middle aged and aged by war, like a disgusting cheese or a wine turned to vinegar. I want you to know that I hated you because your nails were broken, and because you had scabby knees.

 

Yours,

RJ Lupin


	7. Chapter 7

Lupin:

Love letters are known for never ending so to refrain from love and letters, call these nothing. Insult me, tell me of my sins, but croon it softly in my ear when you think I'm sleeping. Smile as if you never knew me and I will roll over to snore. Tenderness, let it be the poet's conceit-- we have no place for it. Our words are pincushions filled with sawdust, a useful place for needles.

I cannot recognize your voice. I cannot recognize mine. My writing limited to reports, grading, potions recipes, full of sharp edges and sarcasm. What have you done to me? Why are we walking this way? It was a matter of scratching groins that itched but you would pull poetry from me like teeth.

Tell me why as I write to you, I write less of the past, and death, and regrets, and more about words. Tell me why love makes orators of fools, and brings the wisest to ruin. Tell me why our lives are given in sacrifice to a boy whose mother died because of misinformation delivered by a spider sealed with the kiss of a rat to a stag. Was not my love enough to buy a life? Are not our lives enough to grant reprieve?

This is not my voice, but a voice I've borrowed, or one who's borrowed me. I reach out and touch your fingertips, but you're as insubstantial as a ghost.

Damn you, Lupin. You've done what hundreds could not. You stole my voice and made me maudlin. I hope you burn for this.

 

SS


	8. Chapter 8

Severus,

There is a song, and the soft voice of a lovely woman singing of wanderers, of vagabonds and thieves blessed because they never know which road they will follow next, they never know where they will be putting their heads to rest the next night. I long for wider spaces and deeper feelings. I long for the faith I lost many years ago. I have never been so carefree, though I can remember times when it seemed the moon was a mere apparition. When I was not defined by limits.

I wonder if the world is so small that wide spaces no longer exist. I wonder if it is only on the sea that we feel small and serene. The ocean, a chasm, but filled with water. What is man, that thou art mindful of him? What is man, that we are mindful of ourselves? The world shrinks, freedom to breathe disappears. I want to leave this place. Come with me.

This is not love, Severus. Love is not such a desperate thing. Love is certain. Love, true love between hearts and minds, fills the empty spaces of a house and makes you feel welcome, safe. My love knew a horse who had perfect control, but that horse so hated life that she threw all her riders and recklessly broke herself. Where are we headed, Severus? What life can exist after war? What manner of living is this, that we live through two wars that are not wars but firebombings? You and I, we could never build a house of books without it burning.

Ours is so small. Our world, that it should revolve around a single school, that one man by the name of Albus and another named Tom should influence events to the extent that it does. This is not a war, Severus. This is a feud. I have seen the wider world and it is enormous, and it is tiny, we are insignificant, and we are gods. That is what Olympus was-- a nuisance to the mortals, who learned to conquer in new and frightening ways.

Why do we bother, Severus? What is our stake? Why do we stay? Who are you, what do you see that makes you sacrifice so much for the sake of a cause unknown by better mortals?

The only thing I would like, at the end of this, is to be buried under the willow tree, where the dogs will not come to eat my bones. Bury me under the willow tree and let me rest at its roots, let me say a final thanks and a motion of gratitude by feeding the one being who never failed to protect me.

 

Yours,

RJ Lupin


	9. Chapter 9

Lupin:

For you, being poor, have spread your dreams at my feet, have spread your body for my use, have spread your sex for my enjoyment, and I smash you under my feet for if my dreams were broken by me, by those too careless to see me, then I will break your dreams too.

I stay because I must. I stay because I must redeem myself, though by the end of this ordeal I will have committed acts that no one will forgive, and no one will want to forgive, and no one will ever forget. It is a redemption that suits me-- I so enjoy untenable and impossible situations. That is the appeal of potions. You give up everything, you ruin a batch, you deliberately add the poison, to render the medicine effective, to give the remedy power. It is not in perfection that potions are created, but a seething festering blistering combination of accidents. Potions are intuition. They cannot be taught.

Magic is intuition. War is intuition. Blood. Darkness. Does it surprise you that in our history, we have always been fraught with wars, and intrigue, and murder? It is how magic keeps itself alive. For all magic that comes from humans must be perverse, every spell and countercurse has a cost. We are the parasites of this world and it is impossible to live in harmony with it. That was why I joined. There were many reasons why I joined, some of the real and some of them false, none of them true and all of them bitter. I must atone.

You know the feeling. You have been atoning all your life. Denying your nature, suppressing desires and fighting against yourself because you seek to be merely human when you could reach and take power. Take it, and use it, and wield it so effectively. The magic would be paid in the only payment magic accepts-- blood. You would rather spill your own blood that feed on the blood of others to transcend your turner, transcend your keepers and become the moon induced magician of unquenchable power.

Power, Lupin. You deny yourself power. Thief, seducer, you cannot help but keep yourself in trade. I walked the alleys eight years ago and knew I saw your figure, shadowed on the wall. Tell me, Lupin, what are the colors you see? What are the scents you smell? You could never tell the difference between good and evil and that is why you allowed yourself to be led. And your friends, the golden boy of Gryffindor knew this and for it marked you traitor. The only color you recognize is that of rusting blood, and it sets your body on fire.

You speak of books and homes and love, but we are magic, and there is no magic in love. It is something only the muggleborn are capable of. Wizards have forgotten it. What Olympian gods would trifle with love when there is immortality to contend with?

Come to me, and let me consume you. I hold dark desires and dark promises, and we might fulfill them before the night is out, before the war is over, before the blood is spilled and the magic explodes with it. Potter is no better than Ares, and you cannot deny that wanderers grow weary of running away from home.

 

SS


	10. Chapter 10

Severus,

Can our words make sense? From whence do they come? Are they real? What are you saying?

The gods, the gods, the demigods, the nymphs, the river lords, the titans, the sirens, the songs, the lovers. There was another god who proclaimed to the deep 'let there be light' and it was so, and he separated the light from darkness, the life from death, and said it was good. The spirit moves on the waters and I used to stare at candles and marvel at the sight of it. I once looked at stars with the feeling of mystery. Now, there is only coldness, and fate, and misery, and the understanding that our world is far away and alone. The sky has always been a reflection of the meanings men have created. Breaking the sky, they thought they would touch the face of god, but they were greeted only by the vast, dark, deep of space as wide as the ocean. It is a miracle that muggles ever ventured to the New World. Wizards, as cowards, could never face the monsters of the deep. We were defeated by myths of our own making.

The sea, Severus, the sea. The ocean, and the tides. Ruled by the moon and her phases. Can you imagine the faith of the pilgrims of America, of Columbus, of Magellan that they ventured upon the waters with nothing more than a compass and star gazers. The darkness is complete in the middle of the sea, Severus. I have seen it. The isolation does wonders, the storms and feeling of the water gathering to crush a vessel. Humility. I would like to see Voldemort battle the ocean.

Where are sweet words, endearments and affections? Where have you flown, nymphs? On my journeys, I met a snake with seven pearls on its head and it asked me if I might take six, so that it might turn into a dragon. I took the pearls and I threw them to the sea. You ask why I did not sell them and it is because-- they were a gift, of great value. When a man finds such a gift, he sells everything he owns to buy it. It was given to me freely, and I had no use for pearls, so I threw them to the sea and watched the water birds carry them off to their nests. One day a phoenix will be hatched from those pearls, Severus. It will sing the sweetest song, and no one will think to listen for it.

 

Yours,

RJ Lupin


	11. Chapter 11

Lupin:

Why do you love me? Why do you return to me? Why, after all this time, are we thrown together and I am given a taste of something I never thought possible. Your hair is not red, your eyes are not green, you turn into a mindless beast once and twice a month. I have ideals, I have preconceived notions of the way the world must work and you press your lips to my brow and they are destroyed. When did you learn this? Did I give it to you? I want it back.

You are an atrocity. I hate your trousers. Yet you lie naked in my arms and I am baffled, I am content, I am a thousand setting suns that will never rise but for the rotation of the earth. You want sweet words and endearments, you write me stories about snakes that turn into dragons and I will not be seduced. You cannot fool me. I would rather buy you than speak to you-- they say money talks. My love, take your cock and go, walk out the door, wrap your body in sheets and put your bare feet on the stone floor. I cannot concentrate.

When you came to Hogwarts the year Black escaped Azkaban, I knew a thousand ways to poison you. A slow, debilitating death administered through tea and pumpkin juice. I remember that year and the mortality written on your face. Counted the years of tongues and blow jobs, imagined the sores that must have festered in your mouth when you became desperate. But knowing you, you never considered it a degradation, only a means of survival. You will live, fool that you are, you are determined, bloody minded in a way that only parasites can be. Is Dark essential to the existence of light, or a black hole ripped in space-time. I read more than Potions periodicals.

I give you nothing but grief-- I can give no more. I may love you, but I cannot care for you, and any plans we make are contingent on our dying. Why are you here? What have we done? Why am I writing as though this can mean something?

There is a man whose face looks as though it were mauled by an animal. Tracks of bones and blood. I think of you. I wonder who you are, would be. This is not about survival. This is about dying.

 

SS


	12. Chapter 12

Severus,

When I returned to Hogwarts-- I took the train. For some reason I thought it would be better that way, that I could face the years of memories without regret. The day I left I promised I would come back to visit, but I never managed it. Time, war, the moon, betrayal. It seemed appropriate that the day I returned, there would be dementors, and Sirius. I don't know why I thought remembering would be any easier with a train. Sentimentality, I suppose. You wouldn't make such a mistake.

You wrote that the castle is a fortress. When I first arrived I had only seen freedom. A naive sense of escape, the chance to pass as human. There are days when I wonder what you saw in the lights and towers, whether it terrified you or held out a promise. For my part, I think it was both. Perhaps this is true of all students, pure or muggleborn.

But a castle, and a fortress. To protect from without-- that is its purpose. Sometimes I see the Founders' intent written into the walls, the awkward way that muggle technology trickles in as pipes between the seams. We have fires, Severus, and torches, yet someone decided indoor plumbing must be installed. Phineas? Albus and a few well placed nudges? I don't know why everyone presumes to write brilliant muggles into wizarding history. Power makes us lazy. Creation-- invention is necessity for those without.

I have no answers. I don't think you were looking for one. It's your habit to ask impossible questions, some sort of perverse streak in you. You said that you know me. Knowing and the sores in my mouth. I remember there was a man who came to me. Paid me, put his fingers in my mouth and felt the cankers under my tongue. I couldn't breathe. This man swore, asked me how many men pay to rape my mouth, and told me to drink. It was vile. I fell asleep, covered in blankets. I don't know how to describe the way I felt, waking.

There was another man who came to me. He curled his hand around my waist and took me from behind and whispered obscenities in my ear. Pretend that you love me, pretend that you're human, pretend we are nothing, pretend we will never die.

There is a point when pretending, and acting, and lying, and stealing, become being. I began as a thief to steal for survival. I'll tell you that if you tell the same lie enough times it becomes the truth. That was why I would have joined Voldemort. Sirius was right. You know this. But he didn't understand. It's as you say. You see them as two sides warring against each other, one cannot live while the other survives. I see them as the same. Different, but the same. I will not betray the light because one cannot betray light, and one cannot betray darkness. The moon is my consolation-- how can we say that she is fickle when travelers take comfort in her fullness? I love you because you are like the moon to me. Destroyer and restorer, rapist and avenger. You'll kill me and kiss me in the same movement-- you're Judas who'll take thirty sickles for my services.

When I returned to Hogwarts to take a cursed position, I knew Sirius would come back to me. I knew you would somehow be mixed in with us again. I knew the past would be resurrected and the traitors reunited, though I never suspected the extent. I admire Peter. Coward though he is, he's secured his place in history and I think, as boy, that's all he'd ever wanted. Only a rat could live so long, and live to be a nuisance. His silver hand-- I think he'd like to kill me. For all the sweet nothings I whispered in his ear. For being untrue, and unfaithful. For having been used by Sirius, James, Albus, the Dark Lord, and most of all-- you.

I can only give you more enemies. Peter always loved my wolf form. Of the four of us, he and I got along best. Peter is clever, and survives. I understood that.

 

Yours,

RJ Lupin


	13. Chapter 13

Lupin:

Be mine or be nothing at all. I don't care to hear about Pettigrew. If this is your way of ensuring my grasp on you will be lethal, you have succeeded. I mean to suffocate you.

Be mine or be nothing at all. I take you. I have taken you. You have always belonged to me. I am a possessive bastard and this, more than anything, drove Lily away. I can't stand for you to be touched by that silver paw or his yellow whiskers. I hate you for bringing memories of Black. In dreams you are spread eagle on his bed, then he transforms into a terrifying hybrid of himself and Bella. She's fond of dogs. The eviscerations leave a stench.

We are perverse. We are a thousand years old. We are asleep, this is a dream, we will wake to find there's toast and marmalade on the table. I can picture domesticity with you. But you write of such terrible things that I wonder how much of you is my dream, how much of you is a lie, and how much of you lives in the rays of the sun. Why don't you speak of wolves and divisions? You are unmarked. Your arm is pristine.

For once in my life can there be nothing left untouched and clean? You have fleas. Your pelt is thinning. The pads of your feet are torn and infected. When you piss there is blood and one day the buzzards will follow you to pick your bones clean. Freedom. I thought you were free. I thought your tongue was long and wet but it's purple. I thought you were gold, the bold and gold of Gryffindor. You are merely gilded. Polite, mannered, wanton, you are a craven thing and I wish I had never seen your face. Where is the luster, Lupin? I am impossible to love.

Blood taints. I'm addicted to your body. You are correct-- when the pressure is removed, we will not survive. We will go our separate ways. You to your men, and your lovers, I to my dreams, and my solitude. I prefer it that way. These circumstances are extreme and lead to extraordinary emotions. If not for the stress, I would never have thought to look you in the eye when you pass in the street.

Curse and swallow me. I know my limits. If I were another man, a better man, I might make you honest. At the present, lies are better than nothing. Nothing is apathy, nothing is silence and absence. Freedom is nothing. I don't wish to be bound, but I wish to bind you away from Pettigrew and the others. You are no whore with a heart of gold, you are not helpless and you enjoy this game. But I was always an idealist in the strangest ways and you offer yourself to me to be taken.

I'll take you, and put you back, and take you, and put you back, and take you, and put you back. Over, over, over again. Is sex enough to keep us, you asked. Sex, and death.

No, it's not. These feelings say nothing. I'd rather have freedom than a room with you in it. If I learn that you've been dealing double with me, I'll rape that mouth of yours and leave you moonless. I'll invent the cure to spite you.

I am aware, Lupin. You don't think it's a curse, you don't think it's a gift. One day if you pass the full moon fully human, you'll lose your mind and tear your body with your own hands from the loss. I've seen the way the gold gleams from your eyes.

 

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	14. Chapter 14

Severus,

We are covered in violence. I love you, and you will leave me as though I were nothing at all. You want that I should burn our letters. It is not the first time I wish we were better men-- gentler, stronger, wiser, longer. I want to say things, I want to write declarations, but you will not believe them. They will only be consigned to ashes. Ashes, ashes, dust and dust, then make a potion simply for spite.

I have my faults, I have paid more than full. I wanted to be a man I am not. I have imagined many lives with you and thought we might be fundamental, like a story that must be told. But I know this is not true. We are fragments. We are less than one hundred words. Past youth and redemption, smaller than the great Dark deeds that leave streaks of terror in history books, we are the beetles and crags that blend in shadow. You might love another, I might marry a brown eyed girl, and we would never feel doubt and grief. We might be happier. I wish we were more than ourselves, I wish I had more than my body to give. It is good that you are greedy and have fingers that grasp, else we might be too slight and slip away like spiders.

Severus, I cannot see you. You exist in my memory as a phantom. I dream of you and you wear a mask. There is a candle burning by the bedside and it gutters, we are engulfed in total darkness and I reach to touch your face. You allow it only for a moment, then you spread me and thrust, divide me and suck, you move and shake and demand sweat from my skin. I want to see you in the morning light but you are always gone before the dawn. The only time I might glimpse your face is in profile, the sky grey purple in the window. Otherwise you do not look at me as I swallow wolfsbane, you avoid my eyes and keep your hands deep in your robes. I hold blankets to retrace your shape, I see black hair in the shower and imagine your body pressed against mine, hot as water.

How can I yearn for this? How can this be a tale worth retelling? My greatest flaw has always been that I change faces like the moon. There is a girl who loves me. I don't pretend to understand it. She does not need me, only wants me, and she gives me sweet words. I will sell pleasure to survive, but I will sell cheaper for words.

You will not believe what I say to you, you do not show your face. This girl has a thousand faces, and she knows what it is to give a smile that pleases. Hate me, Severus. You always have. We were never eternal, and my eyes are not green. I have given you everything. That everything was not enough to buy back our youth. You know, and it's true. I've always belonged to you, but you have never wanted me.

I am a wolf, Severus. You should never have forgotten that.

 

Yours,

RJ Lupin


	15. Chapter 15

Lupin:

I do not look at you because you are a wolf. You willingly drink to become a dog. You lied and told Damocles what he wanted to hear, you do this to everyone, hoping they will agree with you and believe your tired face. You concealed from Dumbledore that Black was an animagus and Pettigrew a rat. You want both worlds, that people should believe your lies and see you human, or people should see the truth and believe you lupine. Do you know who you are? I know. I know you're sleeping with her, you might go so far as to marry her because she believes.

I see. I keep you in the darkness to catch details light erases. Do you know how the silver catches your hair when you're begging for me? Do you know how the lines of your body ignite? Do you know how the wolf stares from your eyes while the man wraps your legs around my waist? Sex, Dark, death, make you whole. I keep you in the darkness to see you whole. To see you. In the light, you become what men define-- the Ministry registration you carry, the scar of Greyback. We were never given the choice to be ourselves so you chose to be everything. I chose to be nothing. That makes us fundamental.

Our tale is defined by others. They will retell it. Our tale cannot be retold because we are defined by what we are not. I am not noble. I am not moral. I am not fair, or just, or beautiful. You are not human. You are not loyal. You are not weak, or right, or truthful. Does that make me base? Does that make you alien? Does that make us traitor, spy, and unfaithful? No. Between the lines there is a space, and we occupy it. We are neither/nor. It makes us nothing. It makes us bodies. It reduces our existence to the wordless, thumbless, jointless. You are stuck between two beasts, I am stuck between two causes. We hew out hollows in each other and therein lies our story. Is it true? Is it eternal? Our story resides in our bodies, Lupin. A wolf in yours, a Mark in mine. We have little that is truly ours. It is in keeping with our characters that you want us to be everything, I want us to be nothing, and the world will make of us what it desires.

I do not hate you. She is a young, willing girl. But you will come back to me and spread yourself for me because you need us equally. I am greedy, I am possessive, I seek to destroy you and I am jealous. But I see you. That is the difference. You pretend you cannot see me. You enjoy lying to yourself. But love creates miracles, I am told, and love has made you honest. You've confessed it yourself.

Come back to me tonight. It is not a request. I command it because I take you, and without me you will never know how it feels to be whole and free. Come back to me because without you, I cannot sustain the contradiction of destructive love. The Dark Lord destroys, the Headmaster loves, and I have been bred for the sole purpose of destroying love, and loving destruction.

 

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	16. Chapter 16

Severus,

I am with her, she says I am a good man, and I believe it. That I am good, that I am a man. She restores me. I can't lie to you-- I love her. I don't know what I did to deserve this chance. It feels like an affirmation. Don't be angry. I can't lie to you. You strip me.

I am with you, you undress me and press into my skin, my body knows you. I feel you everywhere. Your tongue reduces me, your fingers curse me. Your nose is obscene and the palm of your hands callused. You use me, I let myself be used, you write to me, I let the words penetrate. Deep, further. Faster, filling. Harder, words in my mouth, I taste your ideas, you empty yourself of the commands of two lords and I willingly swallow. I would take anything you give me because it is true.

Severus, I want you to know that I have been confused. I have been muddled. I was clever enough to contend for Ravenclaw but cleverness does not teach how to see color in shifting sand. I have tried to be red and I strove to be gold, but even green and silver I would not have been able to manage. The colors I see are brown, burnt orange, the pale and blue of the sky reflected in puddles of water. I want to you know that with you, the world is contrasted. You define so clearly the boundaries that the air around you smells of ammonia. I know your choices are deliberate. I know your betrayals are calculated. I know you have burned my letters, and that the ashes perfume your robes.

You strip me. You blind me, tie me and hit me. You pour wrath and anger, your avarice, greed, hatred, the slights, the memory, the torture, your fear, your foundations, your fury, cruciatus, sectumsempra, veritaserum-- it pours into me. I ride, you overpower, the wave recedes, I know you do this for yourself. And somehow, there is intimacy. Somehow, there is touch. We are not gentle. You are not loving. But you leave me with no doubt. I can never deny that you do not love me. I can never deny that your love transforms.

I am not a stronger man for you and you do not ask it of me. I am simply who I am-- neither/nor. I will never leave you. You might murder a thousand children and eat their carcasses. I still could not leave you.

I am with her, she says I am a good man, and I believe it. You make me good, she makes me man, and in the light I remember your fingers under my skin, pushing.

I make you no promises. You know I cannot keep them. You don't want to be tied anyway.

I am your nor, Severus. I submit to every neither.

 

Yours,

RJ Lupin


	17. Chapter 17

Lupin:

It is like you to accuse me of cannibalism for pushing my tongue into your wet, yielding mouth. Your saliva is a latent curse, activated by the moon. There have been studies, speculations, that one might preserve werewolf saliva and on the full moon, spread it over an open wound. It either inoculates or turns the subject into a werewolf himself, much like the smallpox vaccine.

I have been sucking the saliva out of your mouth and spreading your fluids on my fingers, perhaps liters upon liters. I am covered in immunity or latent curses. As potions master, my blood courses with trace poisons, antivenins, antidotes. I imagine my olfactory bulb to be covered now with a sheen of dust-- the dust of mites, wings, bats. My very blood is becoming a thick concoction that vampires would not touch. It tastes of foul things, vile things, aconite and silver. I may become a cannibal to keep my blood pure but you infect me every time you groan, shout, come into completion. Shall I call you a rat? Spreading plague. I know your curse. It's not the wolf, but death that your body harbors.

Tell me. When you're with her, how do you get it up? You so like being taken, not once have you asked to take. Does her hair change color like the hair on her head? What do you taste with your head between her legs? Imagine your saliva, latent with disease, so near her tissues, wet and mucus folds. How is it, Lupin, that in all your years of prostitution, you never contracted AIDS? Its effects are more devastating than most potions. Amazing what muggles contract.

No one has studied the mechanism by which muggle disease might spread to mages but I have always suspected that viruses have no blood preference. The Black Plague, Spanish influenza, their mage forms that were just as deadly. Sometimes I wonder if the hemophobia is nothing more than a pathophobia, the idea that one can prevent catching ill simply by living in quarantine. Cleansing. The Dark Lord's need for immortality, and clean air to breathe for the duration of eternity.

Sex between us is a disease. Love is a virus. It invades cells and reproduces, evolves and bursts out to conquer more cells until the entire organism is consumed. Thankfully, I have been drinking the antidote for years. My gallbladder produces it naturally.

I have no reverent words. Your eyes accuse me. You want from me what I will not give, you give to me what I would rather take. Lycanthropy has made you tenacious, Lupin. You adapt and spread like the disease itself, and refuse to be defeated.

Only fools love metabolically inert infectious agents. Perhaps I am a cannibal.

 

SS


	18. Chapter 18

Severus,

I have not touched her. I thank you for asking. She looks at me and nothing is spoken, but I know. Reading faces-- I suspect you're adept at it too. Or perhaps not. Death Eaters enjoy masks, and Voldemort's expressions were never very predictable or particularly illuminating. Perhaps Albus? I've wondered often why you look at your students as though they all wore the same face, but it appears I have my answer.

You do not demand fidelity from me and I give it to you because you will not take it, like everything else I offer. Is this how Dumbledore seduced you away from the Dark-- insisting perversely like the ringing of church bells? When I was a child I woke to those bells once after a transformation. They seemed to cry "salvation, salvation, salvation" and I, too exhausted to do anything else, crawled towards the sound.

You will say that it is not fidelity at all if I am able to love her, and give myself bodily to you. 'Be mine or be nothing.' Severus, has it ever occurred to you that I have nothing more to give? You hold my past, my memories, my curse, my body. You hold my words in your hands and you choose to watch them curl in the emerald of magefire. I have some instinct for self preservation, though I seem to lose larger pieces of myself as the years pass. A reason to take up stealing.

Temperament shifts. Perspective changes. I keep turning my mind back to a place where you and I might live together every day, see each others' faces and speak with words. Hear the quiet of our voices. I do this and see you lose your temper. For some reason, all these tableaus include copious amounts of tea and Indian take away. I've never asked Severus-- do you like curry? Take milk with your tea? I can't seem to recall your plate at the other end of the dining table.

 

Yours,

RJ Lupin


	19. Chapter 19

Lupin:

Should I applaud you for your self restraint? An Order of Merlin at the least. I take my tea with milk, no sugar, and I will not make you curry. Do not mistake this for more than what it is. I may consume a thousand children, and you may find yourself regretting any desire to take on more. I do not need another vow.

Perhaps I do not take because I do not want to have. What good is wealth if one never had a choice in receiving the inheritance? You presume that your gift to me is great for the fact that you will give it-- no. A gift is measured by how easily it may be thrown away. I am forced to keep everything: promises, pretenses, positions, potions. Am I free to throw this away, Lupin? You force yourself on me like a stray dog in want of an owner. Will you blame me if I dispose of you with the rest?

This fortress is like a compartment built to hold beetles. Consider the Dark Lord, the great insect enthusiast, gathering crickets to feed to his praying mantis. The Headmaster himself loves cockroaches and wasps, loves to to inflict wasps on the roaches. His Queen secretes a substance that numbs the cockroach mind, renders it zombie, and she lays her eggs upon the roach. Later, the egg hatches and the greedy larvae breaks the exoskeleton in a search for food. And the roach is still alive. I leave you to decide who is whom.

Would we ever be able to meet as men, comport as men, love as men? I doubt this: you are not a man. I do not take my attraction for you as a given thing. Were we both Ravenclaws I would not have found anything remotely interesting about you. Perhaps we might work on assignments together and drink a round of butterbeer. Then it would be running into each other at Diagon Alley with brief conversations that end with promises for meetings we neither intend to keep.

Don't search for a different past, Remus, nor for a bright future. These meetings and our letters exist now and nowhere else. How they came about I do not care to dwell on. It is the only way that I am able to live so recklessly and forget the strangeness that now characterizes my daily existence. I take only what I can bear to throw away. The rest-- I cannot afford to keep.

 

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	20. Chapter 20

Severus,

I dreamt we were cranes, flying. I dreamt there was a moon, round and orange and we flew into it appearing to men below as omens of rich harvests, sheaves of wheat and barley gold on the threshing floor. I dreamt that we flew around the world and it took but a night, then as the stars began to fade we flew home, through the window transforming back into ourselves, my body first from feather to feet and you following. You kissed my neck and caressed my shoulders. We went to a warm bed of white sheets and had sex so slowly, pleasure mounting with the rising sun. You came in the clear light of morning and I saw your eyes dark with pleasure, I saw you skin damp and translucent, I saw your hair retain the texture of night. I dreamt this and woke to find it morning. You were not there. I screamed your name.

I once asked Sibyll to tell me what she saw. Unwise, I know. She looked at me with those glasses of hers, adjusted her shawl and refused. She said my fate belonged to the moon and she didn't dare interfere in Selene's divine province.

We had sex so slowly, it seemed that the sun rose or fell according to our pleasure. It seemed the coming of dawn hinged on our completion, complete union. Hours, Severus. We tasted, and touched, and licked, and loved, for hours. I burned until my entire body was shaking and the only thing I knew was the light, and your name. Strange that Dark creatures should have such dreams of light. I wondered after waking if we could find a ritual that would allow us to stop time, the rise of Dark times and Dark wars, simply by taking pleasure in each other. We could delay the inevitable infinitely and never regret it. As you say-- out of time. We are outside time.

Why is it when I write to you, I never write of the here and now? About werewolf packs and Dumbledore's asinine ideas about their organization-- infiltrating? There is no infiltrating, as though pack were a bureaucracy or chain gang. Pack is, there are no spies. Why don't I tell you about the Weasleys and Molly's endless chatter, why don't I ask you about Harry? I know you always keep an eye on him. Here and now. Somehow, we have agreed not to taint this with the here and now. Let me tell you about Nymphadora. How is Slughorn? You are teaching Defense. In the back of my mind, I know these machinations mean something, must hide some terrible future. Albus. One need only say his name.

I dream, more often than not, that I have lost you. I dream of cold nights when I reach for you and there is only an abyss. The moon rules my fate and there is enough blood in these visions that I fear the future.

When next we meet, Severus, let me stay. Pretend you have overslept. I need to commit your image to memory to pray we'll last the light. I woke to the light of morning and knew-- it's not Darkness we fear, but the swords of revealing light.

 

Yours,

RJ Lupin


	21. Chapter 21

Lupin:

I have no time.

There is no time.

Never mention Potter or Weasleys or werewolf packs again. Whatever suspicions you have, keep to yourself. I am not remotely interested in Nymphadora. Enjoy her smiles. She might learn your manners.

Your letters are intolerable. Don't tell me of your dreams, and I will never oversleep. Your love is delusional and overblown. Do not say I did not warn you. Do not say I betrayed you.

When have you ever known me to touch you slowly? When you have ever known a kiss to sear? I am efficient. I am mechanic. You like your rhythms hard and fast, what have you ever known of the luxury of time? The moon always chases you. You're hounded if not by humans, then by the calendar. The only time I've known is unbearably slow, stretching the years to poisoned molasses, or razor fast. There are timetables determined by the rapid decay of fingers. These coming years will be written in the space of one outcome. Do not talk to me about Potter.

In the event of your expectations, do not rely on anything from me. I promise you that if you have not burned all my letters, I will find a means to raid your rooms and destroy everything you own. I will not die for love, I will not die for the written word and the banalities expressed here. Do not say I did not warn you. If you did not have the estimation of my character now, then I misjudged you as well. You're a fool.

Break any of these rules and I will cease altogether. I will not die for love, and I will not die for you. You thought you offered me love, free and desperate, but what you actually offered was responsibility, liability. I will not have more lives on my hands-- there is a queue. Get out of it.

I may love you, I may take you and write things only idiots could comprehend, but you are close to the limit and you will not cross it. You are gambling that I care enough for you to make an effort. I will not tell you this again, Lupin: I cannot afford it. You were dirt cheap at Knockturn. I suspected the reasons. Now I know the truth. You were dirt cheap because you demand a price too high. I am bankrupt. Better men, more seductive and powerful, kissed me before you.

I never dream, Remus. I am immune. Years of Dreamless Sleep leave me REMless. Does this explain the dark of my eyes?

 

SS


	22. Chapter 22

Severus,

Your armpits smell sour. Your nostrils are narrow-- I can't imagine room for nose hairs. Your skin is stippled along your neck. Your Adam's apple tastes of shirt collars and old skin. Your hair hides the bumps of your skull and I imagine the twisted lines that fuse your cranial bones. On your neck at your hairline there are three scars. Your toenails are yellow, long, and broken.

Your fingers are slender but your thumbs are not. The skin between your fingers is rough, the sensitivity of your right index finger is dulled. I know-- I bit quite hard. There are old burn scars at your wrists, the cuffs of your sleeves. You are used to brewing, used to hot solutions scalding your hands, used to repairing the immediate damage but rarely do you attend to the burns under your cuffs. Timing is everything in brewing. Then there is your Mark besides.

The veins of your arms are almost green. One of your elbows is double jointed. You have a birthmark on your shoulder and an indent from TB vaccines. I wonder why you got it, when and where. I can see the black moles that dot your body. One near your left lower rib, another on your hip. They can signify disease. People get cosmetic surgery to remove them. You are so spectacularly ugly, I can't bear the thought of making you beautiful. The skin over your stomach stretches and wrinkles in abnormal ways-- I could swear you regrew it at some point and the healer was incompetent. Perhaps there was no healer.

Your calves are hairy. Your thighs are somehow smooth. Your ankles were broken at some point and didn't heal properly. They broke your ankles again to reset them, they gave you too much orthopaedic potion. They realized this too late, the bones of your feet fused together completely, and there was no choice but to remove the solid bone of your foot and have them grow anew. But your ankles they kept, for whatever reason. Your feet still have trouble, after long days standing in classrooms and Death Eater gatherings, with circulation and flexibility. I couldn't resist-- I ran a diagnostic spell while you were asleep.

I eavesdropped on your heartbeat and the steady flow the electric charge jolting the muscles to squeeze and pump. I felt the warm glow of your lungs under your ribcage. Your blood truly is an infusion vampires would not touch. Your liver is enormous. You could donate half and still have some left over to fry up with onions. Your tongue is pointed and has more taste buds than the average person. You've broken your back twice.

I am writing this because I do not want to forget. If I cannot keep a picture or written record, I must remember details. This is an exercise in commitment, Severus. I am creating a wax sculpture of you in my mind. If you find this account distasteful, tell me what you want me to remember. I will gladly make room for it.

You and I have seen many deaths. The first thing that goes are not the general shapes. I will not make that mistake again. You do not begrudge me this. I ask too much of you, more than you can give, but let me have this. I know I've stolen it already, but I would feel better if you let me keep it.

I love your body, Severus. The scent of you on my pillow is enough to drive me mad. I love your body and it is physical-- I can quantify it. Your mind is another matter. I don't think I can ever know.

 

Yours,

RJ Lupin


	23. Chapter 23

Lupin:

Keep it. You would not give it back either way.

Your love is appropriate. Another time, I might be outraged-- your eyes are worse than mirrors. I don't have the energy to be flattered.

There was a time when I could not imagine a world with peace, or our world at peace. Violence, rank with fear, has been so embedded into my being that before the second rise of the Dark Lord, I found it difficult to believe I taught children. I woke in stone quarters and didn't understand how I had come to master potions rather than Dark arts. My thoughts turned to you at times, and the purges that followed his demise.

We are middle aged by muggle standards, young by wizarding. I still cannot truly see a world at peace, but I have a better idea of what it might consist. The people it might produce, the lives that might be ordinary. I do not question the validity of the cause Albus chooses to lead, but I often question the circumstances that led to my long and exacting commitment to it. I was young. You were young. That is all the wizarding world seems to be made of, even today: the very young, or the superfluously old.

I am the right hand of Dumbledore, the left hand of the Dark Lord, and it often happens that the right hand does not know what the left is doing, vice versa. I've read-- if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away for it is better that one member should perish than the whole body to be cast in hell. If I cut my right hand-- would you still search for me? Would you cut off the right hand of your wax sculpture, or would you keep me whole? Would you leave out in the sun to be melted in the heat, tallow eaten by the birds? If the right hand is more than a right hand. If the right hand is rotting.

You have seen many deaths. Have you seen enough to be used to the sight? Have you seen enough to use it? You are closer than you can imagine when you say this is an exercise in commitment. You are playing memory games. You are blinding yourself again-- I can see it in the way a thought flashes into your eyes and you push it away. You do not know what to face and what to leave for tomorrow. It is probably too late to learn.

My love-- yes, I call you love-- I was young. I had choices but looking back, it seems there were never any choices at all. I don't say this to exonerate. I only say this is how it seems. I longed to be an essential man-- needed. I can't see a life after this war just as you can't see beyond the cage of your feral wolf. I don't think magic is a peaceful thing.

Dumbledore believes, truly, that with the defeat of the Dark Lord will come an age of peace and prosperity. That the younger generations will have learned from our mistakes and understood the tasks required of them. I do not question the validity of this cause. I question my vision of it and wonder why after twenty years, the word peace brings only the scent of you.

 

SS


	24. Chapter 24

Severus,

Love. Let me call you love. Let us call this peace. Let war be rage, and rage be wind, and wind be storm, and storm be song. Let this be peace and we are in it. If I tell a lie more than seventeen times, it becomes the truth because I've willed it so. Choose a number. Three. Seven. Ninety nine. Choose a number and I will take it and convert everything that was bitter into sweet, golden truth. What truth do you want to hear?

We are not born.

We are perfect.

We have never so much as lifted a finger against each other, we could never conceive of crime. We are pure, innocent, untouched by half moons and half sneers.

We are virgins.

We are masters of our world. We wield power and magic in benevolent, endearing ways: turning glass slippers into princes.

We are respected, walk the streets chin up, shoulders back, straight and proud. We are decent. We have straight teeth, take tea with shortbread.

We have no scars. Our skin is spotless, without blemish.

What truth do you want to hear, Severus? I will tell it to you and say it so many times, I will forget all else and believe your words. It lasts but a moment, living in a world built of words. I crumble against people because I crumble against physical reality-- they hold their perceptions like swords and shields while I am naked. There are so many swords, realities immutable. I didn't understand why everyone hated Lucius Malfoy for saying he served Voldemort on imperius. No one believed it, but did that matter? His pardon and subsequent success lent credence to his truths. He is stronger than I. I have not been half so successful, in words or deeds.

You would never accept that. I can bear to kiss your face because I have never tried to maul it. Otherwise, I would be overcome with guilt and render myself weaker than water. Perceptions, Severus. I constantly see double-- saw double-- and can't remember which is which. Wolves have different values, as you could guess. I was six. My parents tried, James tried, Albus and Minerva tried, to teach me to see with one set of eyes. Poppy took scans, notes of my brain, published papers on the development of an adolescent werewolf. I have a different structure. Lying is a way of exerting control. Wolves don't lie-- only humans do. I lie. I am human.

Love. Let me call you love. Whether I am lying, not lying, what difference does it make? I believe it. Severus, I am well and truly lost to you because I have loved many men and girls, but the wolf recognizes you and is satisfied. That has never happened. The wolf and I have divided my body and shared the spoils, but we have never agreed in choices. You've brought us together in fraught accord and love-- if you leave, there is nothing.

I wanted to be a stronger man, one who could delineate the boundaries between right and wrong and stand firmly on the side of light. I wanted to be principled and knighted. It is like asking a dog to name colors.

If you are ever disappointed in the choices I make and the compromises I've negotiated, I beg you-- remember that I tried. The effort means nothing to you, but I fought it all my life and was tired of wandering without sleep.

 

Yours,

RJ Lupin


	25. Chapter 25

Lupin:

You are Dark, the desperate kind of Dark that will cling to anything that glimmers and drains it of its luster. Your magic is the magic of dementors. You suck happiness and souls rather than dominate. The Dark Lord has many uses for such as you-- it's a miracle you never joined. Then, I suppose Albus is his own Dark.

Duplicitous, you're more insidious than the shadows that flicker on the walls. Ruled as you are, you can only reflect others' light, and much of your face is overshadowed by the earth. When the moon is full she exposes her dark side in you, expresses the fullness of her craters in the ripping of your skin. Is it a wonder that I fell in love with you? I don't care what truths you choose to tell, I don't care how you feel. I know myself. In this I am assured. If you are wanderer, I am rooted to the same fortress for thirty years. Love is a tether, a rope between us that allows you to stray and find your way back. If the earth shifts from under me, do not say I betrayed you.

What do you count strength? What do you count courage? If it is simply a matter of knowing the lines and living in ignorant self assurance, I say you are wrong. I have never encountered a creature such as you, living in a constant state of doubt. Stronger men have found their convictions overturned and, unable to live with that perceived change, died. Weaker men have turned petty and cruel, uncontrolled and uncontrollable. You have had fatal weaknesses, you are flawed. But now you are simply parroting back what you see in the mirror. Black was cocksure and acted impetuously. You admired him and thought him strong. Black was a dog. His family rejected him, so he swallowed the cause of the opposite without chewing.

You have always questioned the world around you. You think yourself unprincipled and blind, yet never was there a fairer, more considered man that lived. You are polite, you draw people in, you tell them what they want to hear and you are a consummate liar. In a lesser man, it would produce the groveling, simpering, quivering of Pettigrew. You understood him best because you and he are twinned. But you are not Pettigrew. There is mercy, and enough iron within the ore that Albus asked you to teach as Potter entered puberty. He understands more than you imagine-- Albus would not send you to the packs if he did not think you would stay true.

Remus, I am exhausted. I have migraines. I no longer care what lies you choose to tell, so long as you are with me, warm in my bed. You are trying to prove something to yourself when you have already proven, time and again, that you are exactly as you are. I would not have you another way. I do not feel safe with you because I never feel safe, but next to your body I can breathe. It's enough for me.

If I break as an anchor, will we be set adrift and lose each other in the waters, or will you hold yourself for me and find refuge in the reefs? The pearls that will hatch to phoenixes-- will you call on them and pray for restoration?

 

SS


	26. Chapter 26

Severus,

I will not make you promises I cannot keep. There is a tide and I fear you are fighting an ocean. It's in your words. Why are you fighting? I wanted to see Voldemort take on the struggle, not you. I am listening. I write 'love' you.

Forgive, my thoughts are scattered. When I write, I hold a picture of us in my mind, how we must look through the roofs and sheets, how a mirror might gaze on the smalls of our backs. War brings many things-- crises in spirit, rendings of soul. If we believe that unforgivables tear us to shreds, it's a wonder anyone can live after war. There are miracles, however. It's in the contrast. The darker the dark. I am not thankful that this feud brought me to you, I cannot make that sort of calculation. Nothing about worth the pain, death, loss. I am thankful you exist and have survived to breathe with me. Unusually incoherent today.

Alastor has been questioning your allegiance. He raises doubts and his arguments are not unfounded. Albus is uncharacteristically silent, only chiding with expressions and his eyes. When he is gone, there are whispers. Alastor has experience, he reminds everyone of everything he's done for the sake of the Order in first days. No one comes to your defense, least of all me. It does no good. Alastor's constant vigilance would have us seeing enemies everywhere-- my association with you leads him to suspect me. We have frozen ranks.

Forgive, I know I am risking more than worth writing. I need to see you. Reassurance that you are a physical being, and tall. I need to touch you. I've been scratching my arms for the past half hour. I entreat. That is as far as I will promise.

Don't say anything. You don't need to. You have given me your hair-- that is the only sign I need.

 

Yours,

RJ Lupin


	27. Chapter 27

Lupin:

I have compiled a list.

Draught of Aether  
flying broomless  
reading (Count of Monte Cristo, Julius Caesar, Dead Souls)  
Ointment of Unctuous  
fourteen uses of werewolf hair  
Himalayas, other remote mountains  
Takashiro Giuou-- q: why mermaid harp? the same brew substituting with kelp leads to absolute disaster-- isolating agent? lack of alchemic resonance? binding?  
dinner (scallops, white, lemon ice) with AD  
Weasley's Wizard Wheezes  
Philter Phynner Phyllus Phynmer (translation and brewing)  
Curse of Iliad  
Troy, Atlantis, Forbidden City  
dinner (oysters, red, creme caramel) RL

It is unlikely I will accomplish any of these by the year's end.

 

SS


	28. Chapter 28

Severus,

Tell me. Please, tell me.

No, you've already looked at me. I know what those scars on your arms mean. When these vows of yours are fulfilled I will make you vow to me that you will never take on another again.

Severus, whatever you hear of me and Dora-- she and I have an agreement. Disregard what's proclaimed to the noise and I will likewise listen for your whispers.

If that was the last time we could meet before this war...

I am shaking.

Don't.

I love you.

Burn this.

Yes, I've done as you've asked.

I'm pretending I will see you again, I'm pretending my memories of you are not tainted with the fear that our meeting was the last time. I am closing my eyes and holding us under roofs and sheets, hid from the clouds and mirrors that drop conspicuous eaves.

Yes.

I'm desperately lying to myself, desperately lying that I'm not desperate. I am calm. This is peace. We are perfect. We are unborn.

I'm holding you in my mind's eye and see that you will do what you must, to the utmost. This, more than anything, sears me and compels me to stay. You believe in strength I've never believed I've had.

This is my test, Severus. You are fulfilling your role. You were tried long ago. This is my test, and I am not certain I will emerge from it.

Love--

Yes.

You said it best. I love, but we have duties to uphold. We were young. The world used that. I have burned all evidence of you to nothing and this is the only thing we've made and owned of our volition, of ourselves.

Love--

This one last time, dream of flight. Before we burn, dream free, then desecrate.

I, being poor, have spread my dreams at your feet. Tread softly, for you tread on my dreams. Tread over, on, into me, and shatter into dust.

Love--

This one last time, say my name, and lean into my touch.

 

Yours,

Remus


	29. Chapter 29

Remus:

‘In thee, O Lord, have I taken refuge, let me never be ashamed; deliver me in thy righteousness.

Incline thine ear unto me, deliver me speedily; be thou to me a rock of refuge, even a fortress of defence, to save me.

For thou art my rock and my fortress, therefore for thy name's sake lead me and guide me.

Bring me forth out of the net that they have hidden for me; for thou art my stronghold.

Into thy hand I commit my spirit; thou hast redeemed me, O Lord, thou God of truth.

I hate them that regard lying vanities; but I trust in the Lord.

I will be glad and rejoice in thy lovingkindness; for thou hast seen mine affliction, thou hast taken cognizance of the troubles of my soul,

And thou hast not given me over into the hand of the enemy; thou has set my feet in a broad place.

Be gracious unto me, O Lord, for I am in distress; mine eye wasteth away with vexation, yea, my soul and my body.

For my life is spent in sorrow, and my years in sighing; my strength faileth because of mine iniquity, and my bones are wasted away.

Because of all mine adversaries I am become a reproach, yea, unto my neighbours exceedingly, and a dread to mine acquaintance; they that see me without flee from me.

I am forgotten as a dead man out of mind; I am like a useless vessel.

For I have heard the whispering of many, terror on every side, while they took counsel together against me, they devised to take away my life.

But as for me, I have trusted in thee, O Lord; I have said: 'Thou art my God.'

My times are in thy hand; deliver me from the hand of mine enemies, and from them that persecute me.

Make thy face to shine upon thy servant; save me in thy lovingkindness.

O Lord, let me not be ashamed, for I have called upon thee, let the wicked be ashamed, let them be put to silence in the nether-world.

Let the lying lips be dumb, which speak arrogantly against the righteous, with pride and contempt.

Oh how abundant is thy goodness, which thou hast laid up for them that fear tee; which thou has wrought for them that take their refuge in thee, in the sight of the sons of men!

Thou hidest them in the cover of thy presence from the plottings of man; thou concealest them in a pavilion from the strife of tongues.

Blessed be the Lord, for he hath shown me his wondrous lovingkindness in an entrenched city.

As for me, I said in my hast, 'I am cut off from before thine eyes'; nevertheless thou heardest the voice of my supplications when I cried unto thee.

O love the Lord, all ye his godly ones; the Lord preserveth the faithful, and plentifully repayeth him that acteth haughtily.

Be strong, and let your heart take courage, all ye that wait for the Lord.’

Psalm 31

 

It has begun. We are ended. Someday, if I am lucky, I will tell you of all this, and what it seemed to mean. I will tell you of your face, the promise of your eyes, that I was never afraid. We breathed, took, created. Someday, if we are lucky, we will look back on this and vow-- never to think on it again.

As we must, Remus. What we must.

Be strong, let your heart take courage-- as you are wont.

 

Always,

SS


End file.
